I have an initial goal of attaining $3,000 per month ($36k annually) in income derived from real estate investments in order to supplement my full-time job.To kickstart this post, I thought I'd ask some questions to the community that I've been pondering over the course of my real estate education:First, market timing: I have the sense that the Dallas market has been on the upswing for the past several years, accelerating even more rapidly since the announcement of several major companies (including Toyota) moving to Plano.  

You can get the majority of these questions answered at one meeting and there's usually no cost to attend.

When properties go to pending or back up status they will still show as active on those sites for weeks.

Especially the days when you discover that big capex like a roof being blow off (happened 2 years ago), some tweakers climbed up on the roof and gutted the A/C (did two of those in the last 12 months), an evap cooler leaked for so long that the drywall on the ceiling of the kids bedroom caved in (last year), the hot water heater blew a hose and a major leak went unnoticed for 10 hours flooding the hall, kitchen and living room (dealing with that now), the tenant smelled gas outside, the gas company came and shut off the gas because the underground pipe is corroded AND also discovered that the water heater is not venting properly so it got red tagged (just dealt with that last month) or the time the tenant "invited" a homeless guy over, he moved in, then called his other homeless buddy up and he parked his crappy RV with his entire family living in it in the driveway.

I want to own and rent properties in the Philadelphia and suburban area for the majority with a few flips here and there down the road.

@Peter GroteThe majority of the investors I know have people known as "bird dogs" who run around town looking for diamonds in the rough.

I have been apart of bp for couple years now was inactive and now I'm active again.

I just turned 60 yesterday and I have a bunch to offer except for rental real estate.I have been in construction since I was 17 and I had an active real estate broker license for about 30 years eve though I never did that full time.  

I'm sure others will respond with their experiences as this site is very active.

It was packed full of new golden nuggets, corrections to some assumptions, and validations on some recent investment activity.